Plume, Samsung Debut 'OpenSync' Open Source Initiative

BERLIN -- Following the large-scale deployment of residential Wi-Fi services relying on its core elements, the cloud managed modern home services pioneer Plume, and the world’s largest consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung announced the formation of a new open source software initiative called OpenSync™.

The initiative, whose elements have been deployed by Liberty Global, the world’s largest international TV & broadband company, Bell, Canada’s largest communications company, and Comcast, the largest broadband company in the US, creates a silicon, CPE, and cloud-agnostic approach for the curation, delivery and management of emerging residential services leveraging managed Wi-Fi.

As the key enabler of this initiative, Plume has open sourced its previously proprietary Plume Middle Layer (PML) software which has already been deployed in millions of homes globally to create the OpenSync™ framework. OpenSync™ operates across residential gateways, modems, routers, access points, extenders, set-top-boxes, IoT hubs, smart speakers and other Wi-Fi enabled CPEs to form a common cloud-to-hardware abstraction layer with open interfaces to cloud controllers. The OpenSync™ framework allows for curation, rapid and scalable delivery, comprehensive back office management, and enhanced support of cloud-based services to the consumer. Diagram available in downloads.

OpenSync™ is available under a BSD-3 open source license and brings an open and extensible framework to build cloud managed services. This framework is compatible with and leverages other open source initiatives and industry alliances such as RDK, OpenWRT and prpl.
OpenSync™ components have been pre-integrated into reference designs and SDKs from the industry’s leading silicon providers. OpenSync™ is compatible with and complimentary to the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Wi-Fi EasyMesh™ standard.

The initial release of OpenSync™ focuses on whole-home Wi-Fi networking, management and control, the collection of statistics using industry standard protocols such as MQTT, IoT device security, guest access management, and advanced parental controls. Through the accommodation of additional open source components including Open Virtual Switch (OvS™) and OvSDB, and via its managers, OpenSync™ forms the foundation of a truly open ecosystem that extends the scope of this open source effort far beyond basic Wi-Fi mesh interoperability.